Tag: asian

I finished watching “Sing” last night and I have to say, even though it was more enjoyable than not, I couldn’t help but compare it side by side to the other Pixar films and feel that it fell a bit flat. First of all, maybe there were just too many characters with subplots that the overall arch had a little struggle in transition and screenplay… my favorite was probably Johnny and his father’s relationship and how it reconciled towards the end, that was touching. But the rest felt a bit disconnected and the emotion didn’t feel translated well, particularly with Buster Moon and Meena’s story. It was lacking a bit of a magical, more in-depth touch that Pixar movies like Toy Story, Up and Finding Nemo/Finding Dory has. That said, I will refrain from judging the whole of Sony vs. Pixar animations since Pixar’s had a few apparently lackluster ones recently, such as “The Good Dinosaur” and “Cars 2”.

On the days when I wallow in depression or pity for myself, whatever mood or situation that brought me down tends to lead to other thoughts that bring more negativity. I noticed that in a lot of the issues regarding inequality in America, I don’t necessarily have it the worst – for example, I am not a black woman, I am not a refugee, and I am not living in poverty. However, there are many other parts of my identity that I am discriminated against, and I start to sit back and count all the ways in which I am “losing out” in our society. Asian, a woman, and also dealing with chronic illness and anxiety/depression issues.

But you know what? I don’t particularly concentrate on that every moment of my life- most of the time, I’m just, me. And in another perspective, I have one foot in in multiple kinds of discriminative causes and conditions, and that gives me a firsthand look into other people’s eyes and experiences. I have greater empathy and understanding because of it, and I can use this as a strength in life.

You know, it’s interesting to me that we often discuss waste, but not much in the literal sense. More in the abstract sense of “waste of time, waste of emotions, ugh Trump is such a waste of space” that kind of thought. “That boy is not worth my time,” the usual kind of relationship material featured on mainstream music like Taylor Swift. Maybe it’s more romantic than talking about actual, straight up, physical waste.

I don’t remember where I read this from, so forgive me if the forgotten source detracts from the credibility of my blog post, but Americans do waste 40% of their groceries on average. When I came across this figure, I paid attention to the amount of food I unearthed in the fridge that had gone bad because it was shoved way in the back, or we simply ran out of time before it started getting inedible, and ashamedly I admit it was probably close to that figure that particular week. After that, I tried to stay on top of things and remember to use up food while it was fresh, but this new mindfulness conflicts with my natural hoarder mentality to tuck everything away and save it “for next time.” Especially during college, when I had the occasional frame of mind to focus on making food with real ingredients and not instant ramen, I would open the fridge and stare aghast at the over-aged, sad-looking, withered bok choy and the molded cheese and fruit (It had only been a week!)

I grew up in a household where a few grains of rice left on my bowl prompted my mother to warn me that the amount of grains remaining equaled the amount of pimples on my future husband’s face. Even though some unused ingredients manage to slip through here and there, my parents had known a harder life than I had, and know the value of food. I’m not saying it was helpful or fun to hear a voice constantly guilting you of all the African and Asian children starving when you couldn’t finish your noodles or felt unmotivated to eat the rest of the fried rice- I was too young to understand anything from it anyway except that it made me feel bad. Regardless, the general rule was that until the food placed on your plate was empty, your butt was not allowed to leave the chair. This plus my eating problems resulted in many nights of sitting at the kitchen table for hours.

In contrast, my friend and I talked about the occasional dinner to a white friend’s house, and finding it absolutely blasphemous when they couldn’t finish their dinners, instead of putting it in the fridge as leftovers, the simple answer to most things was to throw it out. And while I am certain this was not the scenario for every white family, or even my scenario for every Asian family, there seemed to be a common theme for some differences, particularly for how privileged the family or generation is at the time as well.

Many other countries consider Americans lazy, pampered slobs. In many ways, they are right. When other countries think of McDonalds and obesity first, that’s kind of upsetting. Going to Taiwan and Japan, many parts of the culture revolves around the theme of moderation. I find that every single napkin handed to me by the waiter in Japan is petite, and valued. Place this image side by side to the food court at some American mall, where some dude walks by and grabs an unnecessarily large wad of napkins, all to jam into his face as he eats a burger and fries. Sometimes, I get frustrated that I have to walk a couple blocks to the subway station in Taiwan just to find a trash can to throw a cup out, but you know what? It works. Furthermore, Denmark has transformed into waste-to-energy country, with a Zero Waste system in place. I’m pretty happy to be an American, and I am proud to call myself one, but on the other hand, why is it that such a powerful, great nation is unable to achieve what many other smaller countries already have?

Another facet of waste that I see often that is a personal pet peeve of mine, is the waste of water. Let me begin by saying that I definitely waste water- I am very guilty of taking long hot showers, especially when I’m having an off day. It’s one of the best feelings in the world. But what really gets me is when people take their time examining their face in the mirror and leave the faucet running for a minute or more. I see this all the time in public bathrooms, and it BOTHERS ME. Because well, at least the hot shower was contributing to someone’s happiness, but this is just well, plain waste for no reason at all except habit.

I love watching cooking shows. But every time the judge takes one bite of food and then leaves the rest, I can’t help but assume that the remaining food is thrown away. I cringe when I see Joe Bastianich throw the entire plate into the trash can just because it’s not up to his standards. I mean, is that really necessary? While I’m on cruises, I get excited when I know that I get to order as many things as I want, try and taste different plates, because well, the whole point of the cruise is to spoil yourself and get all glutinous, right? A part of me says not to, but I still end up picking maybe two things and not finishing all of it.

I am a hypocrite, but as I’ve grown older, I’ve watched more documentaries (“Living On One Dollar A Day”, courtesy of Netflix, hop on it folks) on why and how people who count every drop and every bite of food, and I’ve had few moments when I was alone and had little access to buy a meal or go grocery shopping. Of course, my spare moments are nothing to complain about, but I just mean that I had a very minor taste in what it could be like to be hungry and make every bit count. I’ve walked by the streets and seen homeless people waiting to get enough for the next meal, or been asked to donate some money to organizations. Listen, I know none of us are exactly able to dump out our pockets and just give it all away, because soon enough, one after the other there are more and more causes piling up, it’s endless. The ongoing problems in our world rarely end, especially the common themes of war, hunger, poverty, politics, inequalities, etc.. But maybe I can honor the organizations and people a little bit by trying harder than I am now not to waste. It doesn’t kill me to make that tiny choice of finishing the rest of the food for tomorrow, it doesn’t kill me to decide to research a few ways to use “waste,” such as using stale bread to make bread pudding, or overripe bananas into smoothies. Even throwing waste into the garden patch is better than just throwing it into the can! It doesn’t kill me to form the habit of remembering to turn off the faucet more frequently. I’m not saying, force yourself to eat the sad-looking, withered bok choy or the expired cheese. Just being more mindful of little choices everyday is a great habit to have, despite our flaws and our desires to be less so. We know there are better solutions out there, and it must be a goal to better our methods from the personal habits to society’s answer to waste and pollution.

I’ve met up with a few friendquaintances from the past just cause, why not? Most of my high school phase left me with friendquaintances, and I felt I never had the chance to properly get to know people and who they really were, although I had a vague idea by the way they treated me or handled my extenuating circumstances… I used to think they were just all jerks, but then the more forgiving part of me knew it was sometimes due more to immaturity and ignorance. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if it was due more to my willingness to be as spontaneous as I could be when possible, or whether it was my insecurities that questioned why people would ask to meet up out of the blue when they had never bothered to get to know me before. Sometimes, my inklings were correct and I felt there were ulterior motives, but who really knows at the end of the day. My paranoia has I suppose, in many ways been both a blessing and a hindrance to what could’ve been.

That said, some people, four years later, may still not have had the chance to learn how to handle with respect more dark matters. When one hears of the passing of someone’s father or mother, for example, one automatically says “I’m sorry.” I always feel awkward getting those words out of my mouth, because it feels so utterly futile in what pain they must be going through, but it’s the least I can offer in the moment. But at least it’s a consistent fallback to what people say to display their empathy.

The other day, I met up with a friendquaintance who asked me to chill and catch up, and I thought why not. Suddenly, out of the blue from small conversation of “What have you been up to,” he followed up with, “Weren’t you always sick or something? What is that?” It caught me off guard because I hadn’t realized he was one of the people who were even vaguely aware of what I had gone through back then, and I awkwardly tried to give an elevator explanation of what I had. In response, he stared at me and gave me a pouty face. How the fuck was I supposed to answer a pouty face?

Let me go on a momentary rant here, and tell you why I get so fired up by people’s responses sometimes. Let’s put aside for a couple minutes the goal to forgive, and understanding that they don’t know shit about your life so you have to let it go. When someone tries to explain to you an illness or a condition that wreaks havoc in their lives on a daily basis, from the minuscule to the grander schemes in life, it takes bravery just to try to bother telling you about it. If someone asks you for some assistance sometimes as simple as a lack of judgment when they use the elevator or ask you to wait with them, you do it. People of chronic conditions in society are marginalized, disregarded, and misunderstood just as people of color or ethnicity or gender are. At least have the decency to study or look up on situations that you yourself don’t experience so that you don’t go spouting ignorant things. So the next time you happen to interact with someone who has an illness or struggle with issues you don’t have, particularly ones you can’t see, don’t go pitying them, particularly slapping them in the face with an “Aww,” or saying something like “At least you don’t live in a third world country.”

Listen, if someone blind were trying to explain to you what they deal with as a blind man, would you respond to that with any of this? Then why is it so difficult to apply that to other varying conditions as well?

Do: Ask them more questions to understand if they seem willing, or just be there for them and be chill about it without making them feel like they owe you a favor or that it’s a big deal. They are people, just like you. We are people, just like you.

I think part of me is a quiet Asian girl, and that’s okay that that is part of my personality and identity. But it’s really frustrating when people seem to pigeonhole you into expecting you to act a certain way, submissively, for example, when you aren’t meant to just roll over for them.

This leads to my second point of discussion, and I wanted to share this story my best friend told me today about racism in her workplace. Besides tolerating her co-workers’ often inappropriate comments that are borderline, or far past borderline sexist, she has a double whammy in which she also has to endure racist comments, particularly from white co-workers. Today, she told me that her and another co-worker were talking to one of the company’s managers, trying to remember what some Asian guy’s name was that they had met. When they were at a loss, the manager actually said, “Well, maybe it was something like Ching Chong Ding Dong eh?” When my friend failed to laugh, he pressed on,”Well, I think it’s hilarious.” My friend finally snapped and said, “I think you should leave before you make a bigger fool of yourself.” Apparently, he just left after she said that. Zero tolerance for that kind of behavior is right, even if it means standing up to someone of a greater authority than you, but I don’t know if I’d have the cajones to do it.

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About Me

I like red pandas and the color orange. This is my stage jolting down thoughts about social and cultural issues, which include chronic illness, physical and mental health, the environment, feminism, race relations. Some in-between personal journaling.
Just wandering around trying to find my niche in the world